SERIES:  COLLOQUIAL (SPOKEN) FRENCH – HARD-CORE LEARNING EXERCISE (6 POSTS)

• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 1 of 6 (#323) – Difficulty level 1
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 2 of 6 (#324) – Difficulty level 2
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 3 of 6 (#325) – Difficulty level 3
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 4 of 6 (#327) – Difficulty level 4
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 5 of 6 (#328) – Difficulty level 5
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 6 of 6 (#329) – Difficulty level 6

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Here is the next in the series of colloquial conversations. (I’ve been super busy lately, so I’m a little slower getting these posts out).

I’m rating this one a notch higher on the difficulty level because of the speed with which things are being said.   Yet, this is perhaps normal speed for many people in a general conversation.

You’ll notice a few things (apart from the faster pace):

• You will start to hear many more contractions,
• Verb tenses and proper spellings are flying out the window (which allows for a faster pace of speech),
• You’ll start to hear extremely colloquial expressions (such as “débile mentale”),
• You’ll hear some English words and expressions which have become part of standard every-day colloquial speech (“yes”, “feeding-frenzy”, etc.)

There are a few things about how this guy speaks which identifies him as being from the Québec City region:

• The way he pronounces certain words, such as
  • “pêche” (with a short “ê”)
  • “écoute” (with a closed “ou”),
  • “là” (with a short and higher “à”), etc.
• People from Québec City also tend to say “conte” more often than the full word “raconte”

Try your best to follow along and become accustomed to the rhythm of everyday street-talk.

The good thing about these audio tracts is that I created closed captions, accompanied with a translation further down, with which to allow you to read and listen to segments over and over again until you are comfortable that you are able to distinguish all the words being said.

Don’t forget to turn on the closed captions by clicking the CC button.

Have fun with it — these types of colloquial conversations are very difficult to come by online.

I say this because most online material generally features

• monologues or
• very international / standardized French from professional interview programs,
• the news,
• documentaries, or
• sitcoms purposely written with with only simple colloquialisms.  Industry professionals say that sitcoms colloquialisms are written to such a basic point that any 6 year old could understand them (I’m serious when I say that).  Thus, even if you listen to sitcoms such as Les parents, Unité 9, etc, you still will not get the “full picture” of how many adults normally speak.

But what I’m giving you here is something very different from the above — it’s the real-deal on how many people normally speak (not what you hear on television).

Again, I underlined bits and pieces of vocabulary which you may wish to learn / pay attention to.

Caller

• 0:00 – Oui Bonjour. J’ai une belle histoire de pêche pour toi. 
• Yes hello. I have good fishing story for you.

Host

• 0:02 – Go, chu prêt.
• Go, I’m ready.

Caller

• 0:03 – Il faut que je (te la) (ra)conte tout de suite?
• Yes, should I tell it right away?

Host

• 0:05 – Mais oui, t’est en ondes. C’est là que ça se passe.
• Well yes, you’re on air. It’s happening now.

Caller

• 0:07 – Hey, salut salut salut. Écoutes, j’étais l’année passée à peu près début juillet au Lac-des-Neiges avec des chums.
• Hey! Hi hi hi. Listen, last year, around the beginning of July, I was at Lac-des-Neiges with some buddies.

Host

• 0:13 – Ouais
• Yah…

Caller

• 0:14 – Écoutez. Y a venté.  Je pense d’hier d’écoute.    Les trois jours qu’on était là il a venté tout le temps.   À la dernière soirée il était huit heure et quart (8:15).  La soirée était vraiment entamée.  
• It was windy.  I’m thinking back like yesterday, listen.  It was windy the whole three days we were there.  The last night it was 8:15.  The night was in full swing.

• 0:24 – Le vent tombe.  On devait cru à une explosion d’éphémère incroyable.   Ça sortait des bois.  Des buissons se causaient de désastres. 
• Then the wind came. You would have thought it was an incredibly instant explosion.  It was coming out of the woods.  The bushes were causing a disaster zone. 

Host

• 0:30 – Ouais
• Yup…

Caller

• 0:31 – C’était incroyable. Complètement là.  Je sors ma canne à moucher.  Je commence à moucher.  Il a eu un début de feeding-frenzy absolument… hein… j’étais là à couper le souffle.  J’ai vu des dots de poissons, et dots de truites à moucher pendant qu’ils mangent…
• It was incredible. Like seriously.  I took out my fly-fishing rod.  I started to cast and fly-fish.  It was the start of an absolute feeding-frenzy… uh… it took my breath away.  I saw the spots the fish were creating [on the surface of the water], and spots from trouts which were going after flies as they were eating…

Host

• 0:45 – Ils avaient faim là.
• They were like, hungry.

Caller

• 0:46 – Ils avaient faim, mais ç’a créé vraiment un feeding-frenzie là. Vraiment un effe  Ils ont tous remonté au complet.
• They were hungry, but really, it, like, created a feeding-frenzie. Really in a lively flash.  They all came up to the surface, completely.

Host

• 0:53 – Ça bouillonnait.
• It was boiling.

Caller

• 0:54 – Aïe, regarde. C’était débile mentale.  Au bout du quai j’étais sorti une truite de neuf et demi.  Pis (re)garde, écoute, c’est juste parce que j’étais le seul qui avait sa canne à moucher prêt…
• Wow, listen. It was completely mind blowing.  At the end of the dock I brought in a 9-1/2 [inch] trout.  And look, listen, it was only because I was the only one who had his fly-fishing rod ready…

• 1:03 – euh… (é)coute, j’sais pas s’il y a beaucoup de monde qui qui a c’t expérience. C’est… qu’ils ont l’expérience d’t’ça dans leur vie.  Mais c’était absolument incroyable.  Vraiment là. 
• Er… listen, I don’t know if there are many people who have had that experience. It’s… I mean who has had that experience there in their lives?  But it was absolutely incredible.  Like really.

Host

• 1:10 – Ah, ben c’est cool comme ça. Merci d’avoir appelé.  Pis euh, quand t’es là, c’est toi le guerrier-pêcheur, pis ta canne est prête, mettons que tu dois avoir une petite fierté un peu.
• Huh, well, that there is pretty cool. Thanks for calling.  And, er… when you’re the one there, it’s you who is the fishing warrior, and your rod is ready, and let’s say that’s gotta give you a little dose of pride.

Caller

• 1:20 – Ah, écoute! J’ai des moments, des moments que je vais jamais oublier dans ma vie. 
• Uh, listen! I’ve had moments, moment which I’ll never forget in my life.

Host

• 1:23 – Hey, merci d’avoir appelé.
• Hey, thanks for having called.

Caller

• 1:24 – Hey, merci.
• Hey, thanks.

Host

• 1:25 – Salut.  Bonne journée.
• See ya. Have a good day.

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SERIES:  COLLOQUIAL (SPOKEN) FRENCH – HARD-CORE LEARNING EXERCISE (6 POSTS)

• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 1 of 6 (#323) – Difficulty level 1
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 2 of 6 (#324) – Difficulty level 2
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 3 of 6 (#325) – Difficulty level 3
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 4 of 6 (#327) – Difficulty level 4
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 5 of 6 (#328) – Difficulty level 5
• Fishing & Hard-Core French – Post 6 of 6 (#329) – Difficulty level 6